If we had to wager a guess, it would be that you didn’t start your business to become a marketer full-time, right? And now you’re trying to grow your small business and realizing that marketing (or even just thinking about marketing) is taking up a lot of your time. 

Well, this isn’t the worst thing because it’s a really important hat that you have to wear! But it also doesn’t have to be as daunting and time consuming as you think. 

Today, we’re talking about why marketing is important for small businesses, what tools small businesses can use to make their marketing easier, and how to measure if all the time we spend marketing (or thinking, dreaming, worrying about marketing) is actually worth it. Ready to get started?

Let’s count off what we’ll cover:

1. Why marketing is important
2. How it’s important even if you have a referral business
3. Marketing tools you can use to do it well
4. How you can get started marketing your small business

*This article was updated in June of 2025.

OK Enji, Why Is Marketing Important?

Without marketing, you don’t have customers. And without customers, you don’t have a business. It's as simple as that. 

Marketing is the engine that drives awareness to your brand/product/service, generates leads, and ultimately converts looky-lous into loyal customers. From there, it even encourages those customers to rave about your product or service over and over again. 

Plus, for small businesses, marketing efforts need to be strategic, targeted, and effective to maximize our (limited time) and money. That’s a really important job!

How It’s Important Even If You Have a Referral Business

We talk to a lot of small business owners who run service-based businesses, so before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room. We know what you may be thinking: “I already get most of my business from referrals, so do I really need to focus so much on marketing?” And the answer is yes. 

While word-of-mouth is a great channel that you don’t want to neglect, you ultimately don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket. Consistent marketing across your other channels gives you much more opportunity to land new clients. Having a business that relies on referrals leaves you vulnerable. We don’t want that for you!

Let’s go even deeper into the 5 reasons why marketing is important.

1. Generating Leads

One of the biggest reasons why marketing is important for small businesses is because it helps bring in new leads. Whether it's through social media posts, email newsletters, or making your website show up on Google, good marketing gets people interested in what you offer. When you connect with the right crowd and give them something valuable, you can turn that interest into real inquiries. 

2. Brand Awareness

One of the most important reasons why marketing is important for small businesses is that it significantly increases brand awareness. By consistently showing up, you are making sure more people become familiar with your brand. Even if you’re not trying to become the next Amazon, this increased visibility helps your business stand out from the competition, making potential customers more likely to remember and choose your products or services. 

And while we are talking about branding, consistent branding across your marketing channels is what really helps your business remain top-of-mind. We talk more about why even small business owners need to care about their brand here. Our brand kits on Enji were one of the first features we ever created, which tells you a little bit about how truly important we think it is.

3. Communicating with Your Customers

Another key reason why marketing is important for small businesses is that it helps you communicate directly with your customers. Today, especially with Gen Z, there's an expectation to interact with brands on social media. They want to ask questions, share experiences, and see real responses in real-time. 

So by being active with social media marketing, small businesses can engage with their audience, answer inquiries, address concerns, and build a community around their brand. And this open line of communication not only increases customer satisfaction but also fosters trust and loyalty, making your brand more relatable and desirable in today’s online world.

Pssst: Before you jump into trying to better communicate with your customers through your marketing, make sure you read this post all about creating customer personas to help you be more effective in your marketing!

4. Relationship Marketing

As a small business, the importance of relationships can’t be emphasized enough. Because building strong relationships with suppliers, influencers, past (and happy) customers, and other key stakeholders is often the most effective marketing channel for small businesses!

Relationship marketing focuses on creating long-term connections that benefit everyone, whether that means collaboration, cross-promotion, or simply showing up in a way that reminds people that they can trust you enough to refer you to clients.

Relationship marketing doesn’t always mean affiliate marketing, but often it does. So if you’re thinking about setting up an affiliate program in your business, make sure to read this article about creating an affiliate program for your small business.

5. Building Trust

Last but not least, when we look at why marketing is important one of the biggest reasons is that it builds trust. When customers trust your brand, they are more likely to make repeat purchases, refer others, and engage with your business on a deeper level.

Transparency, authenticity, and delivering high-quality products or services are key components of building trust through your marketing. You can also share things like customer testimonials or case studies to reinforce your brand's reliability and integrity (in a way that big box stores could never).

Now That We’ve Answered Why Marketing Is Important, Let’s Talk About Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

To market effectively as a small business, you need the right tools. Because using marketing tools can save you time, streamline your efforts, and enhance your overall strategy—especially when they were designed for small business owners who have to do their own marketing. 

Here are some marketing tools every small business should consider:

AI Marketing Assistant

Wouldn’t it be great if you could hire an assistant that you didn’t have to manage? Well in today’s world, that can be an all-in-one AI marketing assistant. 

It’s the perfect solution when you don’t quite have the budget to hire consultants, and you ultimately need a tool that helps you manage tasks and save time. 

With an AI assistant like Enji’s, you can develop your entire marketing strategy in minutes, create branded copy across multiple platforms, and track all of your analytics in one place (without a data analytics degree). 

Marketing Calendar and Scheduling

We say this all the time, but one of the biggest parts of successful marketing is consistency. Posting every now and then just isn’t going to get results, period. 

To stay consistent, you need a marketing calendar of tasks that are easy to manage and stay on top of. Luckily, Enji builds this for you once we generate your marketing strategy! 

From there, automating your publishing is also key. Enji’s social media scheduler lets you batch create and schedule all your content so you don’t have to worry about posting every single day–it’s all done in advance! 

Campaign Templates

While you know you need to market your business consistently, it’s easy to get caught up in wondering what exactly to do next. 

That’s why you need campaign templates like the ones we have in Enji. This way, when you make the decision to prioritize SEO for a quarter, Enji gives you a pretty manageable to-do list to show you what it would look like to actually get that done. 

Analytics Tools

Last but not least, you need some sort of tool to measure your KPIs (or what’s working in your business). We’ve talked about why marketing is important, but now we need to remind you that you can't just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks. 

Enji is a spaghetti-free zone, okay?

That means you've got to track your efforts to know if your small business marketing strategy is working! This is also a great thing for you because not only will you be able to do more of what’s working, but you’ll also be able to give yourself a big fat permission slip to stop doing what’s not working.

Can you believe Enji has them all? When we built our marketing tools, we knew that small businesses already have enough tabs open. We ambitiously set out to create something that would have everything in one place, and then we did it. Find out more (and start your free trial) here.

5 Steps to Get Started This Year

Let’s put it all together–what does this all look like in 2025? Here are the steps you can easily take to get started with your marketing:

1. Build Your Marketing Strategy 

First, it all starts with your strategy. What are your ultimate goals? (Like generating more leads, building your brand awareness, or converting more customers). And, how can you achieve those goals by reaching your audience online?

With Enji’s marketing strategy generator, you can get direction and purpose in just minutes. Plus, we take your workload into consideration so we’re developing a strategy that makes sense for you–as a small business owner–not an overwhelming plan that needs a team to work. 

2. Create a To-Do List (Enji does it for you!)

Once you have your strategy, it’s time to execute! Put simply, you need a to-do list of tasks so you know when to create content, when to post on different platforms, and how to measure all of it. 

Guess what… Enji can also do this for you! Our marketing strategies are automatically translated into a digestible marketing calendar that’s specifically tailored to you and your needs. 

3. Use the AI Copywriter, Idea Generator, and Scheduler

Your next step is to actually create content, and yup, we also have that covered. This can be one of the most time-consuming steps, so having a tool like Enji is so important! This year especially, AI is so prevalent, and you definitely will be missing out if you don’t take advantage of it. There are so many ways that small business owners can use AI.

For example, you can use Enji’s Idea Generator to actually come up with topics that have to do with your business. Then, use the AI Copywriter to actually create posts, captions, and long-form content. Then, schedule it all ahead of time with the Social Media Scheduler. We really have made it as easy as possible for you to get it done.

4. Repurpose Content Across Platforms (New!)

Your strategy probably includes a few different channels (Instagram, Pinterest, and SEO, for example). But that doesn’t mean you need to come up with brand new ideas every time you post across those platforms (phew!). 

Instead, repurposing content is how you can get the most bang for your buck. You can turn one post into a different format for other channels and ultimately spend even less time on your marketing. 

To make it all even easier, Enji’s tool for content repurposing will do it automatically for you! This is BRAND NEW for 2025, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure to do that next (you have access during your free trial too!).

5. Track KPIs

Now that you have your marketing strategy chugging along, you need to keep an eye on your analytics. By consistently tracking your KPIs, you can understand what content is working (and what might not be). 

By building this into your marketing routine, you can ensure that you’re spending your time in the best possible way. All you need is a KPI Dashboard that pulls in all your analytics and shows you how your numbers are trending month over month. 

Now that you know why marketing is important, let’s get started.

In case we haven’t stressed this enough yet, marketing is the lifeblood of any successful small business. By bringing in leads, boosting brand awareness, and building strong customer relationships, good marketing helps your business grow and stay growing. We love to see it!

Ready to take your marketing efforts seriously this year? Start your free trial on Enji and we will create a doable marketing plan for you within minutes (seriously – just answer 20 multiple-choice questions). From there, we’ll create a marketing calendar and give you a to-do list that will make you excited to actually start checking things off and make progress in your marketing again.